“I was raised in a small country church by salt-of-the-earth Christian parents, but somehow, for whatever reason, it didn’t take with me. The only thing I was paying attention to was the modern culture and particularly the music of the day. Music has always been my go-to for expressing emotions. One band I started following in the 80’s was an Irish group called U2. They had a unique sound and seemed to address more serious topics than the typical love and broken hearts. Their third album came out in 1983 and was about the violence in Ireland. The last tune on the record was called ‘40’ and went like this: ‘I waited patiently for the Lord / He inclined and heard my cry / He brought me up out of the pit / out of the miry clay / He set my feet upon a rock / And made my footsteps firm / Many will see / Many will see and hear / I will sing a new song / How long to sing this song?’ I remember asking a friend, ‘What’s that about?’ and he said, ‘It’s like a psalm.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You know, like in the Bible, a psalm.’ I said, ‘What are they, like religious or something?’

“Then in a bookstore one day I ran across a book on the psalms with an intro written by U2’s lead singer, Bono. I couldn’t think of another rock-and-roll front man who would have done something like that, so I got it and read it. Bono said his favorite psalms were the ones of lament because of their honesty in wrestling with God. The lament psalms are full of complaint and protest. Reading that, I started feeling a pull back to my Christian roots. I was raised to be polite. Polite to others, and of course polite to God. Prayer was never modeled for me as a way to bring pain or doubt or questions to God. That would have been rude. Maybe they were teaching that when I was growing up, but like I said, I left the party early, so who knows what I missed? For most of my life my idea of prayer was to be nice when talking to God and don’t bring up anything unpleasant. I didn’t know I could express grief or brokenness or anger. The relationship I had with God was about as personal as the one I have with the lady at the dry cleaners. Once I started reading the psalms though, I saw how they expressed every emotion a person can experience. They’re messy and they’re real. So yeah, I came to God through rock music, and that tune, ‘40’, was my gateway. You just never know how grace works in our lives.”